"China is a giant who is asleep, let him sleep because when he awakens, he will move the world." - Napoleon Bonaparte, 1816 à Saint Hélènee

NGÔ THẾ VINH

Figure 1: The Chinese trawler with the ability to dredge to the bottom of the sea: This kind of trawler illegally fish along the West Africa and other coasts with the strange technich; and destroy all resources on this planet. [Source: India Live Today, July 8, 2016]

Chinese communist exhausted the fish resources

During the period when the sea was full of fish, the fishermen's life was good and plentiful. But now on the other side of the world, West African fishermen like Guinea, Senegal are lamenting that the sea of fishes only pulls up the almost empty grid. (1,2)

Meanwhile, in the eastern province of Zhuhai, the 75-year-old Zhu Delong also shook his head at the net with scattered little fish and red shrimp. He recalled, "When I was young, I could catch the big yellow croakers, but now they are empty."

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, due to over-net fishing, global fish stocks are slowly depleting. Across the oceans, due to fishing and hunting, most of which are Chinese fleet vessels, which directly affect the lives of millions of poor fishermen whose marine resources are the source: Their main income and also their food.

Figure 2: The Chinese fishing fleet grows bigger and bigger, So do its smuggling fishing along the West Africa coastline [Source: Greenpeace Africa 20.05.2015]

Figure 3: With more than 2,600 trawlers, Chinese communists are present everywhere: East sea, Australia, Indian sea, West Africa and South America. They were dubbed "King of the Ocean" [Source: The NYT 04.30.2017]"

With a population of nearly 1.4 billion people, accounting for one-fifth of the global population, economic growth, past famine, and rising incomes each year, they have demand for food, and seafood is as a popular source of food. To provide that need, the Chinese Communist Party has established a large fleet of iron ships, not only fishing vessels but also militaries/militia in the ocean, shipbuilding, maritime equipment, fuel, and even ice chambers that keep fish alive for weeks on long trips to West Africa or South America. These fishing fleets are also protected by Chinese communist guards.

For Beijing, these fishing fleets help Chinese determine its sovereignty over territorial waters over disputes in the South China Sea. The provincial government of Hainan always encourages trains to the Paracel / Paracels in Vietnam and Spratlys, where both the Philippines and Vietnam claim sovereignty.

The most frightening thing to mention is that the Chinese ships have been able to launch long-haul flights to the depths of the sea, scraping every creature in the ocean, picking up coral reefs and dumps oyster beds; and 90% died when thrown back into the sea. This type of trawlers is banned in many countries as a result of extensive damage to the ocean habitat but is being utilized by the Chinese. [Figure 1]

As fish stocks in the Chinese water are almost exhausted, Chinese fishermen are encouraged by the state to bring fishing fleets to distant waters of other countries.

These Chinese fleet vessels not only flutter in the South China Sea but also go beyond halfway across the globe, to West Africa and even to South America. [Figure 2, 3]

The Chinese state has financed the $ 22 billion MK for its fishing industry, which is three times more than four years ago (2011-2015), according to a University of Singapore study.

The fleet of Chinese vessels to distant-water areas has reached 2,600 units (the number of US fishing vessels is only one-tenth). In the waters of Senegal, these iron ships could net the number of fish numbers in a week equal to net catch for a year by a local fisherman.

When it comes to global fishing, Chinese is king of the sea. China is the largest exporter of seafood in the world; China consumes 1/3 of fish caught, 2/3 of fish is exported. The seafood industry has also employed 14 million Chinese.

"In essence, the so-called traditional fishing in the Chinese sea is just a name. For the Chinese leadership, ensuring the supply of seafood is not only good for the economy but also contributes to social and political stability." According to Zhang, from Nanyang University.

Chinese Communist robs the staple foods of the birds

It should be reminded here to explain to young people raised abroad on the expression "robbing the staple food from the birds"; It was something very essential, like the little rice of the poor but still robbed ruthlessly by the rich. It is also the image of Chinese fishing fleet steals and robs from the poor fishermen around the world.

Senegal is typical of a poor country of West Africa with 14 million people and 300 miles of coastline and fish resources as its lifeblood. The circuit is being dredged to exhausted by the Chinese. (1)

How can local fishermen with fragile wooden boats confront the massive fleet of iron-and-mortar ships of the Chinese Communists? As a result, poor Senegalese fishermen, now with no income, no longer have enough fish to eat as their main source of protein.

“We are dealing with an unprecedented crisis, and if that continues, the Senegalese people will have to eat jellyfish for survival," said Alssane Samba, former director of research at the Senegalese Navy Academy.(1)

Seafood is not only a source of protein for the Senegalese people but also a source of income for the fisheries industry and provides 20% of their employment.

In the past, fishermen caught big groupers and mackerel and tuna, but now they have to scramble on small pieces of sardine. Senegalese fishermen today want to catch fish, they have to accept the danger of daring to get away with their wooden boats, regardless of the weather, but when encountering Chinese Communist's super trawlers fleet. Their fragile wooden boats may be sunk. With small fish catch also, their future is seemingly hopeless.

Adding drought to climate change has pushed hundreds of thousands of Senegalese farmers from the countryside to coastal areas, making it more dependent on the sea, while marine resources have been exhausted.

As migration to coastal waters has turned the coastal town of Joal from a small fishing village with several dozen fishing boats, it has become a town of 55,000 with 4,900 wooden boats. Abdou Karim Sall, the president of the local fishermen's association, was seen as a hero when he captured two captains of smuggled Chinese fishing boats, saying: "We still think that sea life is endless, but now we are confronted with a disaster."

Life is increasingly difficult; deadlock finally pushed them into the boat refugee of reluctantly economic poured into the European countries. Moustapha Balde, 22, has a cousin who died from a shipwreck in the Mediterranean, saying: "Foreigners complain about immigrants from Africa, but no one cares about them. – implying the Chinese ships come and steal all the fish in our waters."

Dyhia Belhabib, a fishery expert, is trying to assess the status of smuggling along the West African coast and especially worst with the Chinese fishing fleet. In Senegal alone, Chinese Communist has stolen 40,000 tonnes of fish per year, damaging up to 28 million tonnes. The damage figures are much greater as the Chinese fishing boats operate in the restricted area, especially at night.

The tragedy of fish stealing from the Chinese also occurred in Guinea, another West African country. The harbor of Bonfi in the town of Conakry is also gloomy with the colorful wooden boats that no longer bring the same abundant fish. The people of the port of Bonfi only show anger but do not do anything with the fleet of Chinese fishing boats. The Guinean government not only lacked the means to protect the sea but was paralyzed by corruption.

For the Chinese, disaster in other countries is their opportunities. According to the Greenpeace organization, it is extremely bad, and even Chinese's heartless is that when Guinea is in trouble in the face of the terrible epidemic of Ebola 2014, then instead of participating in the relief It was when the Chinese fleet accelerated to bring more fleet to exploit smuggled fish of this country.

According to the Environment Justice Foundation (EJF), West Africa is home to the world's largest smugglers. The Chinese communists have enriched themselves by robbing fish as well as essential food from the poorest of West Africa such as Cape Verde, Mauritania, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Senegal. Poor people, lack means of self-defense, they are bullied by the Chinese Communist. The corrupted West African government / [maintaining the corruption is also Chinese’s benefits], with no shortage of slogans to protect the sea but people understand that they are just empty cliches. Having encountered such a large country as the Chinese Communists, once known as the "pirate nation," this was an uphill battle, the losing part of which was always their side.

Figure 4: the skimpy fishing boat of Guinea fishermen. They are bullied by the Chinese’s /super trawlers [Source: BBC World-Africa 8 July 2016]

Chinese communists have the largest fleet of fishing vessels in the world, capable of traveling monthly to distant oceans around the globe, and smuggling in the waters under the sovereignty of other nations. It can be said that no country has the sea without suffering from the Chinese pirate fishing fleet.

According to UN estimates, smuggled fishing fleets, especially the Chinese Communists, have cost the global economy $ 23 billion a year. And West Africa is home to the world's largest smugglers, according to the Environment Justice Foundation (EJF), a non-governmental organization in the United Kingdom. "The operators of these smuggling cases have enriched themselves with the exploitation of the poorest of the West Africans."

A look from Esat Sea and Vietnam

Thousands of Filipino fishermen have been driven away by fishing vessels from the fishing grounds around the Spratly Islands, which have traditionally been their fishing grounds. Palawan fishermen, due to their inability to live on the sea, have turned to swarming forest for farming, but due to the erosion and desertification of the land, they cannot live on the farm. (1)

Vietnam with 2,200 km of coastline, with elementary text book’s sentences: “golden forest, silver sea” has now gone into the past. Most of the forest is destroyed, the sea is poisoned, and fish is exhausted. Vietnamese fishermen have two yokes on their neck comparing to people of Western Africans. Not only did they lose their fish, but their seas were also robbed. If they want to go to the sea which was their ancestors’, they have to risk their lives.

Figure 5: Vietnamese fishing boats prepared to go for fishing trips. They are not protected by Vietnamese government and always attacked by Chinese ship right in the Vietnam water [Source: photo by Ngô Thế Vinh]

- March 6, 2016: 11 people from two ships flying the flag threatened to break into a Vietnamese fishing vessel off the coast of Hoang Sa, not only destroying fishing vessels and fishing net but also completely confiscated foods, stockpile and steal all fish caught

- May 13, 2016: A Chinese ship sank a Vietnamese fishing vessel off the coast of Quang Nam province, 350 nautical miles northeast of Da Nang in the Paracel archipelago, losing all its fishing equipment and equipment; robbed 30 tons of squids; damage up to 450,000 MK.

- 09 July 2016: Vietnamese fishing boats and five fishermen were attacked by Chinese coast guards in the area near Hoang Sa archipelago 34 nautical miles from the island of Bong Bay and then abandoned them on.

- November 10, 2016: fishing vessel KH 97580-TS of Vietnam was hijacked by sea vessels and chased out of Hoang Sa in Phu Lam island and Linh Con island.

- May 01, 2017: The newest vessel BĐ 93241-TS on board with 15 crew members was stranded and killed a Vietnamese fisherman and one injured.

...

Chinese communists Continuous attack on Vietnamese fleet(3), clearly not separate events, but a consistent strategy. Beijing has given the green light to these repeated attacks; policy "a stone kill two birds." By violence, Chinese communists determine sovereignty over the disputed waters; At the same time, exclusive exploitation of resources, oil, and fish resources, not only in the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagos but also encroaching on the coastal areas, is obviously the inviolable sovereignty of Vietnam.

Vietnamese fishermen still bravely stick to the sea. They are protected by the state through the repetitive, empty statements of the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam such as "Strong condemnation of acts of inhuman treatment, using force against Vietnamese fishermen, requesting the Chinese to investigate and deal with the crew of the cruise ship that intentionally submerges the Vietnamese fishing vessel, leaving fishermen in danger of death. Chinese wharf complies with international law, does not allow the recurrence of similar actions and takes the form of adequate compensation for Vietnamese fishermen." (VnExpress 13.07.2016)

As a result of these objections, the victims have the right compensation by the Chinese government? The survival fishermen know very well. And as ever, the relationship between Vietnam and China has been praised by the Hanoi Politburo as good with the motto “4 good and all 16 golden letter.”

Figure 6: Chinese ship struck and sunk Vietnamese fishing boat. Within the Exclusive Economic Zone of Vietnam; This is an example of a series of continuous attack from Chinese communists toward Vietnamese fishing boats. [Source: Bloomberg News May 26, 2014]

There should be another question here, a sad fact that Vietnamese fishermen, unprotected by the state, have been chased by the Chinese for fishing in their familiar waters. In such a distressing matter, some have risked their lives steaming into the waters of neighboring countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and recently down to Australia. The small number of spontaneous Vietnamese fishermen is nothing compared to the Chinese fleet of heavily pirated fishing vessels fully backed by the state of Beijing to meet the Chinese economy needs simultaneously with the military advance of expansion doctrine by Chinese Communist.

The Policy of "Soft squeeze, hard let go.“

Chinese fishermen illegally fish and blatantly violate the territorial waters of other countries has led to the dispute. The extent of the dispute with the Chinese communists and how it reacts depends on the strength of the host country. In the Pacific alone, notwithstanding the large seas surrounding the Paracel, Spratly Islands that Chinese communists currently possesses, Chinese communists also sends smugglers into territorial waters under the sovereignty of other nations. Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam. "Soft squeeze and hard let go” is the policy of "bullying" of the Chinese fishing fleet. With countries like Japan, South Korea who have powerful coast guard forces to chase, the smuggling Chinese communists no longer dare to pursue.

Anger and resignation are the plights of West African states that are not able to defend themselves. Vietnamese fishermen despite being pursued and suppressed by the Chinese, they persistently persevere.

But to other countries, the matter is different. Indonesia had seized several Chinese ships in their pirate fishing areas, and even airstrikes with F-16s on the Natuna Islands sank the invaders. Only recently, in April 2017 Indonesia re-destroyed 81 more smuggled foreign vessels, of course including Chinese ships, raising the total to more than 300 since 2014's President Joko Widodo. Indonesia is determined to protect its seas and fisheries despite the diplomatic strains with Beijing.

South Korea because of a strong maritime patrol force and a tough policy, when they discovered that the Chinese Communist-led smugglers attacked and overturned, resulting in some fatalities and the smuggling Chinese Communists had to flee. [Figure 7]

On March 15, 2016, the Argentine Coast Guard reported a large vessel of Chinese communists was smuggling fish in its waters and ordered the ship to leave, but they resisted. Argentina sunk the ship. Four Chinese fishermen were captured alive, and the remaining crew escaped on another Chinese communists ship.

Napoleon, a nineteenth-century French military genius, prophesied of a country of China: "It is a giant who is asleep, let him sleep because when he awakens, he will move the world."

Beginning in the third millennium, more than two centuries after Napoleon, a Chinese Communist woke up. Not only does it shake, but it also rotates the planetary axis in a destructive sense. The world's largest populace has brought bad signals to the planet: the champion of land and air pollution, the destruction of Earth's third pole, Tibet, where the source of the line Asian River; destroys the life of the oceans / marine life. Now with the "one border one road" strategy, the Chinese are trying to conquer and capture the world's resources with "the strongman's argument."

Returning to Vietnam, apart from a minority of the red capitalists, with more than 95 million people, ranked 14th among the world's most populous countries, they have a common denominator, a very normal dream. To be able to breathe fresh air, drink a glass of pure water, have family meals with fish bowls and fresh vegetables.

But with the red bauxite mud poured out on the Central Highlands, with the Lee & Man paper mills on the bank of Song Hau River, with the Formosa steel plant in Ha Tinh sea still pouring out the toxins, such a mundane dream seems to be slipping away from the hands of the Vietnamese. And the question is what caused this mayhem?

There is still a lesson in history: the people who want to survive must have inner strength, the power to unite inside and outside and must say "no" to the Chinese Communists.